Third Reply to Criticism of WTC Demolition Page

On November 7, 2002, I received a message from a student at Carnegie Mellon University who did not like what I had to say on my World Trade Center Demolition page. Here is my reply to him written the same day:

Hello Michael,

Thanks for your thoughtful (and civil) message.

>I'm really hoping that the information you present about the collapse of
>the World Trade Center towers is not information that you are automatically
>willing to believe and accept. If you're being a conspiracy theorist just
>for shits and giggles, then shame on you. If, on the other hand, you're
>presenting radical and unconventional, anti-"offical story" ideas because
>you have the constitution-given right to exercise freedom of speech, then I
>guess I have to give you credit — for I am an avid supporter of freedom of
>speech myself.

None of the above. I'm presenting evidence and writing about it and what it seems to imply. In such matters as this there is rarely a 100% certain chain of deductions from evidence to conclusion, and one has to consider the probabilities and likelihoods (in the context of wider knowledge). It's not about belief. It's about coming up with hypotheses which seem to fit the facts without being contradicted by any. Standard scientific method. In this case, the official story does not stand up to criticism, and I consider other possible explanations of the events.

>I'm a student at Carnegie Mellon University with a minor in architecture
>and a true love (and a LOT of knowledge) of skyscrapers.

Sure. And a student's ability to take in what is said on TV programs such as Nova and to parrot it back without thinking seriously about it.

>The collapse of
>the Trade Center towers was NOT orchestrated by the government.
>That is such a ridiculous idea.

I do not say it was orchestrated by "the government". I suggest that a probably small group of government insiders (including military men at the highest level), the same people who are behind the "War on Terrorism", brought about this event to further their aims of world conquest (the first episode being the conquest of Afghanistan, with Iraq next on their list, unless they take out Yemen first).

>The structural engineer, Leslie E. Robertson, suggested
>that, even if he had known during the towers' construction what he knows
>now, nothing could've prevented the disaster. He knows exactly why they
>collapsed. Because of the unique and somewhat revolutionary engineering
>techniques implemented in their construction, the towers were exceptionally
>strong and yet exceptionally vulnerable at the same time.

This is merely an appeal to authority: Distinguished expert so-and-so "knows exactly why they collapsed" therefore what he says is true, therefore (since he is putting forward the official story) the official story is true. Is there something suspect about this logic?

The only thing worth consideration is Robertson's actual theory as to "why they collapsed".

>The 2,000 degree fire exposed that weakness from the get-go.

No-one has ever demonstrated that the temperature of the fires ever got anywhere near 2,000 degrees (whether Centigrade or Fahrenheit, which you do not specify).

I refer you to J. McMichael's two articles which deal with this matter:
Muslims Suspend Laws of Physics! Part I and
Muslims Suspend Laws of Physics! Part II

Take a look also at Chapter 2 of Eric Hufschmid's book, Time for Painful Questions which is online at http://www.erichufschmid.net/PainfulQuestions_2.pdf (with some browsers you have to reload or refresh to get this).

Hufschmid considers the theories of various experts, including Thomas Eager, a Professor of Materials Engineering and Engineering Systems. Eager pointed out that steel melts at 1500 degrees C (2700 degrees F) but that "jet fuel produces a maximum termperature of 1000°C (1500°F) when mixed with air in perfect proportions but this only causes steel to glow a bright red. ... It is virtually impossible for an airplane crash to coincidentally mix the fuel and air in such perfect proportions that the maximum possible temperature is achieved. Therefore the temperature of the steel was significantly less than the maximum of 1000°C," probably (he says) no more than 700°C (1300°F).

>The steel floor trusses didn't
>resist fire for very long, especially when most of the fireproofing had
>been blasted off of them. The trusses, which held the steel exterior
>load-bearing columns in tension, finally failed, and the floor slabs began
>to come down. The exterior structure had nothing left to hold it up, so it
>failed catastrophically. It's simple physics.

You seem to be parrotting what you've seen on some TV programs, but you cannot appeal to "simple physics" to justify a theory which is fatally flawed, in this case, the "truss theory". The truss theory is a fabrication designed to support the official story. This is explained in more detail on my WTC page at http://www.serendipity.li/wtc.html#truss_theory (which you ignore) and there is no need to repeat the refutation here.

>Oh, and then there's the silly idea you present on your site about no plane
>ever having hit the Pentagon. I know two people who saw the thing come in!

But what exactly was "the thing"? I don't say that no plane hit the Pentagon. The evidence suggests (actually proves) that whatever hit the Pentagon was *not* a Boeing 757 (and thus the official story is a lie). Maybe it was an F-16 jet fighter under remote control. Maybe it was a AGM-86C cruise missile. Whatever it was it seems to have been travelling very fast, too fast for civilians untrained in identifying flying objects (and not expecting to see one coming in fast) to have been able to tell what it was.

>Why do you think lamp posts were snapped in the Pentagon parking lot three
>hundred yards from the building?

Have you checked on the height of the wing of a Boeing 757 above the ground? Have you looked at how the engines are attached to the wings of a Boeing 757? Have you checked the heights of lamp posts near the Pentagon? If so then you'll understand that if an incoming Boeing 757 clipped the lamp posts then part of its engines would have had to be below ground level.

>Why do you think damage sustained to the
>first floor of the building extended to the exact length of the plane that
>hit it?

Probably because it was a cruise missile which hit the Pentagon and it penetrated as many rings as it did.

>How do you account for various small pieces of the plane that can
>clearly be seen in some photos?

None of the debris in front of the Pentagon has ever been shown to have come from a Boeing 757. There are no pieces of aircraft engine. There are no sections of wings sheared off. No passenger luggage was ever found. No charred bodies were ever recovered. Perhaps you should reread http://www.serendipity.li/wtc.html#pentagon_images.

If you're referring to that piece of twisted metal, photos of which can be seen on various websites(e.g., here — and read the comments not just the heading), there is obviously something wrong with this piece of "evidence". If this actually resulted from an American Airlines Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon then there would be lots of other pieces, similarly identifiable, littering the impact site. But this was the only one.

And even if that fragment was from the doomed AA plane it still doesn't show that that plane hit the Pentagon. The theory which I put forward in my WTC page at http://www.serendipity.li/wtc.html#the_actual_plan has the four planes being diverted to a military airport. One of them was later shot down over Pennsylvania (and all innocent passengers thereby eliminated). We don't know what happened to the other three, but probably they were destroyed (otherwise they were painted over and re-used somewhere, but this would be risky; better to destroy them entirely). If they were destroyed then the fragment in the photograph could have come from the destroyed AA 757, shipped to the Pentagon one night by someone wanting to plant evidence, though rather clumsily.

>Analyzing the fireball itself, which can
>be seen in that rare video taken by a camera in the parking lot, anyone
>familiar with the nature of fire and the physics of explosives could tell
>you that the fireball was caused by jet fuel or some other potent
>accelerant — not by dynamite, or C-4, or a fertilizer concoction of some
>sort.

This video (or rather, the frames said to be from the video) is interesting in several respects. One is that it seems to show a plane, much smaller than a Boeing 757, maybe an F-16 jet, approaching the Pentagon and firing a missile with a high-explosive warhead (as suggested by the white-hot fireball, too hot to have been produced by jet fuel). Unfortunately it is also clear that this video is a fake. See about four-fifths of the way into http://www.nerdcities.com/guardian/SeptemberEleventh/WhatHitThePentagon/index.html for a convincing demonstration of this.

It could be that this video was released so that critics of the official story would be tempted to use it as evidence of the absence of a Boeing 757 impact, whereupon it would be revealed that it was a fake, thus discrediting those critics. Since it was a fake it is best ignored entirely (except as an example of one of those clever tactics used by what Carol Valentine has called the fake opposition).

>I don't automatically accept everything
>that the press feeds me. It just so happens that, in the case of the World
>Trade Center collapse, I believe that the press has presented the truth.

Then I'm afraid that you're simply gullible. You have not bothered to examine the evidence presented on my website which shows that the official story is full of holes and, since it is still presented as the truth by the U.S. government, was probably intended from the beginning to mislead the people and cover up the true explanation for the events of September 11th.

>You should have a little more faith in humanity.

I have faith in the basic fairness of most of the American people, who have been lied to and hoodwinked by a government that has come to treat them as no better than an exploitable resource. The American media has concealed from the people those facts which cast doubt on the official story, and is thus shamelessly complicit in the cover-up. If the American people knew the facts they would not believe the lies they are being told.

Almost everything that George W. Bush says on TV is a lie. However, he's not a very good liar, as anyone with any intelligence can see clearly. Unfortunately, it seems that most Americans can't quite accept that their President would lie to them constantly, treating them as gullible fools, which is why they will mostly continue to believe him, thereby contributing to the ruin of their own lives, and in many cases to their own deaths. I suggest you take a look at what Voxfux has to say on this matter.

Best wishes for your continuing education,
Peter Meyer

The World Trade Center Demolition and the So-Called War on Terrorism
Serendipity Home Page